


The Arc of Time

by TrueMyth



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 02:37:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4546920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrueMyth/pseuds/TrueMyth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Small windows into Mulder, Scully, their partnership and eventual relationship; Arranged chronologically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bring it Home

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to drabblefiles on LiveJournal.
> 
> Chapter 1: _Bring it Home_ (Mulder  & Samantha, G, pre-series)  
> Chapter 2: _A Man of Infinite Trust_ (Mulder, Bill Mulder, Phoebe Green, Scully, T, pilot)  
>  Chapter 3: _Iced Tea_ (Mulder  & Scully, G, season one)  
> Chapter 4: _Sex on a Stick_ (Scully, T, season one)  
>  Chapter 5: _I Spy_ (Mulder  & Scully, G, season two)  
> Chapter 6: _Never_ (Alien Human Hybrid, G)  
>  Chapter 7: _Seeing Red_ (Mulder, T, season five)  
>  Chapter 8: _Sunday_ (Mulder/Scully, T, season seven)  
>  Chapter 9: _One Sorry Son of a Bitch_ (Mulder/Scully, T, season seven)  
>  Chapter 10: _Disbelief_ (Mulder/Scully, T, season seven)  
>  Chapter 11: _To Fill the Void_ (Mulder OR Scully, G, season two or eight)  
>  Chapter 12: _One Instant of Insanity_ (Mulder/Scully, G, post series)  
>  Chapter 13: _The Files_ (???, G, post series)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Home"

You got to have an arm to play right field. He tells himself that every day during the summer, but a part of him knows his father is right, they have him out there because he hasn’t proven himself to the team, shown them what a Mulder is made of.

So he chokes up on the bat, taps his feet in rhythm with his inner mantra, ‘Hips before hands, hips before hands,’ and squints against the glint of the Vineyard sun off Ricky Peterman’s glasses. He twists into the swing and feels the vibration through the wood. Before the crack of bat against leather fills his ears, he’s speeding down the green, bending to a 45 degree angle as he rounds first.

Flapping pigtails catch the corner of his vision and his grin spreads further as four Mulder legs eat up the earth. Fox is deaf to the cries from the outfield, doesn’t register the meaning of the rushing shapes consolidating to a small sphere as he moves – and crashes into Hank on second. He doesn’t listen to the words as he watches his sister jump up and down with her friend.

He brought Samantha home and that was enough.


	2. A Man of Infinite Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Trust"

"Trust no one," his father said, watching him slip beneath the glossy surface of the lake, retracting the promised inner-tube. 

The man smiled with a hard pride as Fox began to tread water for the first time. Fox wanted to sink to the bottom, just to spite him.

Instead, he learned to swim through the dark waters.

* * *

"I'll never trust you again!"

His mother's shriek was punctuated by an equally sharp slap of flesh against flesh. Fox didn't know who'd hit whom, didn't care, only wanted a larger pillow to muffle the sound, block out the noise, because he couldn't close his eyes, couldn't tear his gaze away from the empty bed across the room, spotlighted by the harsh moonlight.

* * *

"You drove me to it, love. You've never really trusted me; one must live up to expectations."

Fuck, it wasn't even an apology.

Mulder ran from the room while Phoebe was still reaching casually for her bra. He pushed himself through the foggy Oxford night and wished the stuff would seep into his brain, turn his world gray.

He ran on.

* * *

"I'm not a part of any agenda. You've got to trust me."

And, somehow, he did.


	3. Iced Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Spill"
> 
> Because we all know there was iced tea in the bag.

"Oh, crap."

The muffled, barely-an-expletive -- echoing faintly off the sketches of insanity that adorned his basement walls -- had a charming, self-deprecating humor she'd already begun to think of as distinctly 'Mulder.' It had also served to mask her entry, even as she balanced a small box of drinks and two wrapped sandwiches from the lunch cart. It was only her third week working on the X-files, but she'd picked up a double order on a whim. Dana's cheeks were flushed pink with the embarrassment of it all, but then she peered over the paper-packed desk to find Mulder on his hands and knees, mopping up the last of a spilled cup-o-noodle, and all embarrassment fled.

"This floor was dying for a good scrub." Mulder bounded to his feet and slam-dunked the sodden wad of paper towels.

She countered his half-smile with a mild raise of one eyebrow and offered, "Egg salad and iced tea."

"What did I ever do without you, Scully?"

"God only knows, Mulder. Now what's this e-mail about a man with a psychic monkey?"


	4. Sex on a Stick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Sex"
> 
> Set in early season one.

He’s sex on a stick, and she tries not to notice: the way his lips glisten with grease and morning coffee as crazy spills from them in some roadside café, the way his slacks hang from his narrow hips and stretch again in interesting places, highlighted by the light of his slide projector, the way his hands feel on her upper arm, his fingers on the curve of her back, his breath on the shell of her ear, whispering impossible things.

He’s sex on a stick, and everyone knows it. Ellen always asks if anything has “happened yet” since she’d made the mistake of sharing that newspaper photo. The secretaries talk in the restroom: cut off halfway through the story about Jenny, the elevator, and the Christmas party of ’91 just as she leaves her stall. She feels her cheeks growing hot when they start up again before the door even closes behind her. 

He’s sex on a stick, but that’s not the worst part because he is honest.

He believes.

He trusts.

He trusts _her_.

Worse than falling into bed with her new partner would be falling in love with the man she has been sent to spy on.


	5. I Spy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Boredom"
> 
> Mid-season two. Mulder and Scully deal with their boredom during a stakeout.

"I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with C."

"I already did 'car,' Mulder."

"It's not 'car.'"

"Oh… Concrete?"

"No."

"Cement."

"No."

"The corner?"

"Uh-uh."

"I'm not a certified coroner. That doesn't count."

"Scully, I'm shocked that you'd even suggest it."

"Humph."

"Want a hint?"

"Never." Fabric rustled as she leaned forward. "Chimney?"

"Nope." The syllable was a popping sound close to her left ear. "Give up?"

"You know I always win."

His coat pocket jingled as he shrugged.

"Coins!"

"That I see?"

She was contrite. "Coat?" 

"No." The satisfaction in that single word grated.

She leaned into his space, edging for a line on his perspective and ignoring the feel of his breath across the back of her neck.

"Curb?"

"No."

"City?"

A snort.

She leaned so far against him; she felt a bulge against her back. Mulder turned quickly in his seat.

"You cheat! There's no way you can see your cell phone!"

"Yeah," Mulder admitted, "but I can see yours." His finger slipped across her cell, peaking from top of its cradle. The tip of his finger brushed the side of her thigh for the merest second.

"Oh."

...

"I spy…"


	6. Never

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Nightmare"

It never dreams, though the eyes move under translucent skin, rolling in sockets to seek some distinction within the cool green world. It never dreams as it is prodded, measured, tested, and sorted, then moved to a larger tank to grow more. It never dreams, never rests, never imagines, because it has never woken, never acted, never created anything.

How could it dream? It's never known childhood.

How could it dream? It's never touched another living thing.

How could it dream, this unholy mix of DNA, tube-born and vat-grown, bred for war, fire, and the enslaved mastery of half its being?

Then one day the motors whine, the cold sludge chokes down the drain, and the wires come off. Bright lights fill newborn eyes, harsh sounds pound on infant ears, and pinching hands pull the man-sized child into the chill air of the laboratory.

The nightmare has begun.


	7. Seeing Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Redhead"
> 
> Set during season five.

It was the first time Mulder'd seen red in his lifetime.

"I bet she's a hellcat between the sheets."

"She's tiny."

"Hey, tiny has its own merits."

The laughter was sloppy over the sound of a rushing tap, and he was rooted in the stall as a red haze flared in the corners of his mind.

"I dated a doctor once. She knew things about the human body that kept me in bed for weeks."

"I'd like to sample Dana's 'bedside manner'." The jerk guffawed at his wit.

"Think she's a real redhead? She had dark hair in that pic Colton showed me."

"We're not paid investigators for nothing, Agent!"

"Think Mulder ever hit that?"

"Durran, I don't think Spooky would know what to do with an Earth woman."

"Ain't that the truth."

 

The crash of the stall door against the wall was followed shortly by the satisfying crunch of cartilage as Mulder's fist plowed into Durran. The dull percussion session that followed left him wiping blood, in the familiar dark grey, from the corner of his mouth. He used the neglected running water to tidy up and left the idiots on the floor before returning to the training session.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't actually consider Mulder's red-green colorblindness to be canon, but it was fun to play with in this respect.


	8. Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Boredom"
> 
> Set near the end of season seven.

Nothing like a boring Sunday morning, Scully thought.

The clear, brown coffee sloshed against the side of her teal mug, swirling and mingling with the pre-measured, non-fat, non-dairy, hazelnut creamer.

"Mingle!" She crowed as she marked the answer to 13 down, a 'merry mix.'

The toast sprang forth as if joining the celebration. She reached for the sugar-free marmalade by habit, but then bypassed it for the Nutella. Scully was feeling rebellious. Like a slob, she munched over the sink while dashing off a few more solutions. No need to clean a plate, but even Sundays weren't worth bed-crumbs.

Her feet made soft shuffles against the throw rugs as she navigated back to her room, licking the last of the chocolate from her lips, sighing with contentment. Half way done with the puzzle and nothing to do for the rest of the day: Scully grinned.

She climbed back into bed and ran her toes down the warm, golden length of Mulder's waist. He grunted, but then turned into her silk-clad side.

"Seven letter word for 'fraud.'"

"Swindle," he mumbled to her hip bone.

Scully smiled as she inked. Nothing like a boring Sunday morning.

And this wasn't.


	9. One Sorry Son of a Bitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Regrets"
> 
> Set in season seven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The drabble that got away...

Fox William Mulder was sorry about a lot of things.

He was sorry about Samantha. He was sorry he let her on the rope swing when she was only six and it was his job to watch her. He was sorry about the broken bones and her tears and his parents’ disappointment. He was sorry about his failure to protect her on that summer day and then, one and a half years later, he was sorry he’d argued with her, yelled at her. Sorry his last words to her had been “Get out of my life!”

He was sorry about his parents’ divorce, no matter what arguments his rational mind might throw at him in the dead of night, no matter how much deceit and complicity he uncovered on the part of his parents, a part of him still existed that knew it was somehow his fault.

He was sorry about Diana: another failed marriage to lay at his feet. He was sorry he loved her too much the first time - or thought he had - and too little on her return. He was sorry he’d missed the signs, the scent of smoke in her hair. He was sorry she’d died.

He was sorry about Scully, sorry he hadn’t locked the office door that day back in March, sorry he’d been too busy dazzling with slides and files and organic compounds to notice the integrity in her eyes, the kindness in her smile, the willingness in her easy grace when he should’ve screamed at her until she ran from the shadows and never looked back. Because now he was sorry about the missing time she’d never recover, the cancer, the tests. He was so very sorry that she would never be a mother, because Dana Katherine Scully would be a damn fine mother and she should easily have two-point-five kids by now from some Viking guy with a name like Sven or Lance, protected behind white pickets and alien-repelling beds of pink petunias in perpetuity.

He was realizing Scully just might be the top of his list of things he was sorry for: the very tip-top, if this list was by order of importance. It should be by order of importance and not this sorry chronological thing currently snaking through his brain. Order of importance would make more sense if he had to make a “Things I’m Sorry For” list. Mulder was pretty sure he would have to make such a list sometime soon, now that he was her boyfriend. Was he her boyfriend? Was that a term that worked for this relationship?

He was sorry he didn’t know what term to use to describe them.

He was sorry he’d dislocated his shoulder hours before he finally decided to kiss Scully, sorry he couldn’t bury his fingers in her hair, push her up against a wall or back on a desk or over a car hood as he had in his mind so many times. Mulder did try to be sorry about what went on in his mind when she wore that skirt with the slit, but that particular regret was a lost cause. However, he was sorry he’d made her wait seven years and then several more days. He was sorry they hadn’t made it to his bed the first time, sorry he came first when it finally happened, even though he made it up to her. Twice.

He was sorry about –

And then Scully turned, murmuring in her sleep, her forehead ruffled with worry as her lips sought solace in an arc of night air, leading her body in a spin that ended tight against his side. The muscles of her leg quivered as it slid between his, like she was preparing to run from the shadowy drop at the edge of his bed. Mulder dropped a kiss on each over-worked brow and marveled at the sudden tranquility his touch inspired. Her lips parted to blow a soft sigh of air across his jaw, and she was still.

Fox William Mulder was very sorry, but he’d lost his train of thought.


	10. Disbelief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Nightmares"
> 
> Set just before the end of season seven.

If she believed in psychic phenomena, she'd be worried.

Three weeks straight, at three in the morning, Scully would snap up from her bed, hair slicked to her scalp, silk stuck to her back, and breath hitching like a metronome ticking out a samba. Her eyes, open wide against the pressing dark, would seek for cause while her arms, flung wider, would search for solace. More often than not, she found peace to the left of her, in the shape of her solid and sleeping partner, anchored to the mattress, resting like the proverbial log between her 400 count sheets. On these nights - like this night - she'd trace the line of his arm, love the warmth of his skin, smell the scent of his hair as his head slowly invaded her pillow, and she'd calm herself; change into a new set of PJs; fall back into bed at his side.

As she drifted to sleep, Scully tried again to remember the nightmare, but could only recall the feeling of loss, worry, and a faint flutter of something low in her belly. She shook her head, wanting to rest well for tomorrow's expense report evaluation, and drifted to sleep.


	11. To Fill the Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Comfort"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to write this so that it could apply equally to either Scully or Mulder during the abduction of the other. What do you think?

They all tried: the Gunmen with their offers of Scrabble-poloza and cheap beer, the new partner with his tentative smile and massaging of the rules, even Skinner was more of a father than a boss these days.

It didn't matter. 

There was no comfort when the partner you'd come to count on to fill the space between your words, to be the ebb to your flow, the zig to your zag, when that partner was gone. There was no comfort in friendly faces or social niceties. It sometimes seemed as if the only moments to catch a breath without a hitch of pain were those when your hands were filled with the things left behind, as if the shell of sheets, clothes, trinkets formed a void whose echo answered for a missing heartbeat, and in that void, it was possible to breathe... for a time.

It was those small comforts that drove the search, that sparked the hope, that fueled the belief that what was lost would one day be found. Ah, to be whole again.


	12. One Instant of Insanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Boots"
> 
> Set after the series, before "I Want to Believe."

Years had passed before she showed Mulder the boot.

Late one May, she took it from its secret place between the pages of a treasured book and laid it on the table before him like a suddenly reluctant pilgrim, eyes downcast to trace the design in the linoleum instead of the shifting, uncertain patterns in his face. Together, their fingers read the blue cotton like braille, a surface of new hope forever embossed with grief, until – tip to tip – they met in the middle and Scully found the words to speak.

It all came flowing out: how she'd acted on this one instant of insanity before closing the door and waving farewell to the social worker's car, how she'd fisted the warm cotton to her chest and thought not of William's bare, pink toes, but of the matching boot bouncing its way to the heartlands, how she always knew where it was, this little piece of blue, and knew too that there was a mate for it out there in the world. Boots always came in pairs after all.

It was only after the words stopped that she glanced up again.

His sad smile was a perfect pair for her own.


	13. The Files

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Beginnings"
> 
> Ironically the first drabble I wrote for the X-files, it is the last one I place here.

His initial task slipped from his mind the moment he saw the filing cabinets, dust covered and antiquated, wedged into a dark corner of that tiny basement room. He dropped the file he carried on a table, slapped at the wall until he hit on a switch, brought forth some illumination, felt his face break into a grin at the possibilities. The first drawer shrieked at his tug, screaming a protest at yielding its secrets.

“X-458632 ASTRAL PROJECTION.” The red and white striped boarder made him taste the peppermint of a candy cane at the back of his throat, smell the pine of a tree on Christmas morning.

Ridiculous: the F.B.I. keeping files on such things. His analytical brain cataloged all the reasons this didn’t make sense, even as he flipped open the file and began to read. And suddenly, for the first time in his 32 years, for all the pleasure and tranquility of his Midwest upbringing, Special Agent William Van De Kamp felt at home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I can be found on Tumblr under the same username, should you wish to seek me out, or give me further prompts.


End file.
